US Navy’s Aegis-Equipped Warship Destroys ICBM with SM-3 Block IIA Missile

The U.S. Navy’s USS JOHN FINN (DDG-113) Arleigh Burke-class destroyer intercepted and destroyed a threat-representative Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) target with a Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IIA missile.

The Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) System-equipped ship fired the missile during a flight test demonstration in the broad ocean area northeast of Hawaii, November 16, 2020. The Flight Test Maritime (FTM) – 44 test marks the first demonstration of an Aegis Baseline engagement of an ICBM-representative target.

This vital test demonstrated the latest Aegis Baseline 9.C2.0 capability against an ICBM class threat and introduces the ability to provide layered Homeland Defense with Aegis. The target was launched from the Reagan Test Site (RTS) to conduct an Aegis Engage on Remote (EOR) mission.  As designed in the current U.S. command and control architecture, the remote target track and discrimination data was provided by the MDA’s Command, Control, Battle Management and Communications (C2BMC) system and forwarded to Aegis for prosecution.

“This successful intercept is a tremendous accomplishment and confirms we have inherent capability against long range ballistic missile threats that can be deployed to all our Aegis Baseline 9 ships and Aegis Ashore sites – at any moment.  The success of this mission has significant underpinning to the Aegis system’s strategic ability to provide Layered Homeland Defense,” said Jim Sheridan, vice president and general manager at Lockheed Martin.

With the successful completion of four Aegis Baseline 9.C2.0 European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) Phase 3 intercepts of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM), this test demonstrated the ability to provide a globally deployed defensive weapon system. This missile defense system will defend the United States, its friends and allies from hostile ballistic missiles from all regions, all ranges, and during all phases of flight by a single integrated system that is capable of comprehensive layered defense.  As C2BMC capability continues to advance, it will help to unlock even more Aegis weapon system capability and lethality.

Aegis Baseline 9.C2.0 is built from the Common Source Library (CSL) and can rapidly integrate new capabilities, including solutions for both SPY-1 and the growing SPY-7 family of radars.